Two-Week Live Abroad Stays in Oaxaca Offered

Grand Circle Travel has added a new Live Abroad vacation in Oaxaca to go with a similar long-term stay in Guadalajara and its two-week “Three Faces of Mexico” tour. Like all Grand Circle offerings worldwide, it’s for the age 55-plus traveler.

Offered through April, 1990, the Live Abroad two-week stay in Oaxaca costs from $800 to $940 per person, double occupancy, depending on the season and choice of accommodations. The price includes air travel from Los Angeles, transfers, tips and baggage handling.

A choice of two first-class hotels is offered: the San Felipe Mision and the slightly more expensive Mision de Los Angeles. A daily American breakfast is served in both, but those choosing the San Felipe Mision also get dinner each day.

Set in a mountain-ringed valley 350 miles south of Mexico City, Oaxaca has an excellent climate--especially during winter--of warm days and cool nights. In addition to golf, tennis and swimming, there is optional sightseeing to six major ruins within a 20-minute drive, including the famous Monte Alban.

And like the Live Abroad program in Guadalajara, each hotel has a weekly social program with a welcome cocktail party, bingo, Spanish cooking and language lessons, plus films, an orientation tour and local entertainment.

The Live Abroad program in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, also offers a choice of hotels for the two-week stay: the first-class Plaza de Sol, a 30-minute drive from downtown, and the deluxe Hyatt Regency Exelaris. Daily breakfast is included at both hotels.

Prices vary from $762 to $832 per person double at the Plaza de Sol, and from $902 to $972 per person double at the posh Hyatt Regency. Rates vary with the season, but include air fare from Los Angeles, plus tips, transfers and baggage handling.

Grand Circle’s Three Faces of Mexico tour is a 14-day escorted trip that takes in pre-Columbian cultures, plus colonial and modern Mexico. It covers the Yucatan, Oaxaca, Mexico City and Guadalajara.

Priced at $1,772 per person double from Los Angeles, the tour includes first-class hotels, 20 meals and comprehensive sightseeing. It can also be combined with a Live Abroad stay in Guadalajara. Departures are Dec. 28, 1989, Jan. 11 and 25, Feb. 8 and 22 and Mar. 8 and 22, 1990.

For more information, contact the Grand Circle main office in Boston at toll-free (800) 535-8333, or the company’s California office at (800) 327-3904.

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Three San Francisco hotels are offering special deals or discounts for mature travelers over the holidays and into 1990.

The Carlton Hotel, 1075 Sutter St., six blocks west of Union Square, has a $62-per-night rate, single or double, now through March 11. The rate, which includes an 11% city tax, is a saving of about $18 a night. Mature travelers also get a 25% discount at the hotel’s Ritz Cafe, and discount coupon books for Pier 39 and Ghirardelli Square shopping and dining. For information: (800) 792-0958.

The Hotel Bedford, 761 Post St., sets an $80 rate, single or double (tax not included), now through March 30, also with the discount shopping and dining coupon books. Information: (800) 652-1889.

Free parking is included in the $69 single or double overnight rate at the Cathedral Hill Hotel, on Van Ness at Geary, now through Jan. 31. Information: (800) 622-0855.

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And some last-minute holiday trip additions:

Frontier Travel & Tours, based in Carson City, Nev., and a member of California’s Senior Travel and Recreation Activities Council, is running a five-day New Year’s Gala Event tour at the Anaheim Hilton and featuring the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade.

The tour is mostly for mature travelers visiting California, but Frontier also has limited openings for two big holiday dinner dances and shows at the Anaheim Hilton that are included in the tour.

The dances are Dec. 30-31 and feature Myron Floren and the Lawrence Welk Orchestra, plus Anna Maria Alberghetti and John Raitt, in addition to other “Lawrence Welk Show” stars. Tickets are $65 per person. For information: (800) 648-0912.

The tour includes four nights at the Hilton and reserved seats for the Tournament of Roses Parade, in addition to the two shows and other sightseeing, for about $500 per person, double.

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Senior group tour leaders should know that the Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theater in Griswold’s Claremont Center, featuring the Christmas musical “Home For The Holidays” until Dec. 30, will follow with “Fiddler On The Roof” from Jan. 5 to April 1.

Then comes “Evita,” April 6 to June 17. All are popular with senior travelers, and early group reservations are suggested. For more information, call (714) 621-1370.

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Correction: An incorrect telephone number was listed in Hank Kovell’s Mature Traveler column last week. The toll-free number for Collette Tours, an Alhambra-based mature travel club, is (800) 832-4656.